As the largest university in Boston, BU takes its role as “Boston’s University” very seriously. The Strategic Plan states as a goal the need to strengthen our leadership as an urban university, and we can’t do that without continuing to forge connections with the city of Boston. That’s why across the University, professors, deans and students continually work to find innovative ways to be good citizens of the city and the metropolitan area. For example:

• The University gave approximately $40 million in direct payments and in-kind donations to the city of Boston.
• BU awarded over $5 million in four-year, full-tuition scholarships to 40 top students from Boston’s public high schools. The Boston Scholars program has awarded nearly $126 million in scholarships to 1,719 students since the program started in 1973.
• BU joined Campus Compact, a national coalition of college and university presidents dedicated to civic and community engagement on campus. BU was one of five institutions chosen by Campus Compact to act as a real-life charitable organization and disburse $15,000 donated by Fidelity Investments.
• The School of Medicine’s Outreach Van Project received a four-year grant from the Association of American Medical Colleges to continue its service to the homeless community.
• Through Step UP, a coalition of five local universities in a program championed by Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, BU partnered with Boston English High School in Jamaica Plain and the William M. Trotter Elementary School in Dorchester to send School of Education faculty into the schools and bring local elementary students to BU for a taste of higher education.
• BU’s Community Service Center (CSC) is home to 13 student-run service programs. With a volunteer base of more than 1,500 people, the CSC this year contributed an estimated 75,000 hours of service in the Greater Boston area and around the U.S.

A beacon of excellence for Boston: WBUR

Radio station WBUR-FM, which is owned by Boston University, used to rely on the University for much of its support. Not so today. The station is completely self-supporting. In fact, this year, it raised its entire $20 million budget through corporate underwriting and listener donations. That’s no easy feat in a broadcast market where other public radio and public television stations compete for the same dollars.

But the maxim, “If you broadcast it, they will come,” holds true for WBUR, which produces more than 25 hours of original programming each week. Indeed, for many listeners public radio from WBUR is the paragon of great broadcast news. Here are some accomplishments from FY08:

• The station continued its award-winning tradition, picking up seven regional Edward R. Murrow Awards from the Radio-Television News Directors Association and winning eight of 12 radio categories in the Massachusetts/Rhode Island AP awards competition.
• The station started a weekly program devoted to stories with a Boston focus.
• The station hired BU alumna Sacha Pfeiffer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter from the Boston Globe.
• WBUR’s national program, On Point, boasted 380,000 downloads in May 2008.
• The station launched a web newsletter, WBUR Today, that reaches 20,000 people every morning.